(This story, in slightly different form, originally appeared in ALM's Daily Business Review.)

WEST PALM BEACH, FL-A Tennessee investor has made its first South Florida real estate acquisition by assuming the $26.8-million debt on the Publix at Whitworth Farms shopping center in unincorporated Palm Beach County. Boynton-Whitworth Farms, an affiliate of Brentwood, TN-based PGM Properties, agreed to take over the loan of MPG Flavor Pict Road, an affiliate of Safety Harbor-based Monroe's Prestige Group.

MPG, which obtained a $32.6-million loan from Superior Bank in June 2007, developed the 112,000-square-foot center at 12343 Hagen Ranch Road in 2008. The anchor tenant, Lakeland-based Publix Super Markets, the center's anchor tenant for the past six years, turned down a chance to buy the property for $29.9 million on Jan. 12.

PGM executives plan to visit the center next week to plan a leasing strategy and determine what improvements are needed, says PGM president Dudley Parker. The center currently has about 40,000 square feet of vacancy.

"We looked at a lot of properties [in South Florida] but never found anything we wanted," Parker says. "We sat down with the bank about this center and worked out a deal that satisfied everybody. We will continue to look at a number of things in the area in the future."

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